BUSINESS

Toby Keith’s ’35 Biggest Hits’ reaches different milestones on separate Billboard charts — bringing the late country star to never-before-seen landmarks.

Spectrum, which is owned by Charter Communications, is rolling out a free offer to internet customers as it struggles to retain them amid tougher broadband competition. 

The company revealed in its latest earnings report that it lost 172,000 internet customers in the second quarter of this year. Amid this trend, its internet revenue also declined by 3.2% year over year. 

The weak performance comes after Spectrum raised prices by $10 on several internet plans in July, a move it had warned customers about in June. It also comes as it faces heightened competition from AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, which are increasingly attracting customers to their fiber and fixed wireless internet services with lower prices and bundled deals. 

“We continue to see expanded fixed-wireless competition versus a year ago, including lower sales from low-income consumers, ongoing mobile substitution, and fiber overlap growth at a rate similar to prior quarters, with aggressive promotions by certain competitors,” said Charter Communications Chief Financial Officer Jessica Fisher on an earnings call in July. 

Spectrum offers free Amazon Prime to select internet customers

As Spectrum struggles to navigate mounting competitive pressures, it has partnered with Amazon Prime to offer this service for free to eligible internet customers, according to a recent press release.

Amazon Prime usually costs $14.99 per month, and it includes benefits such as free fast shipping, member-only discounts and access to Prime Video. 

Related: Spectrum makes significant decision as customer losses mount

The free offer is available to new and existing internet customers who are on any internet tier. Also, customers enrolled in the Spectrum Internet Assist program, which provides home internet service to low-income households, can also snag the deal for free. 

Spectrum states that “eligibility is based on serviceable address.” The offer is also open to internet customers who have existing Amazon Prime memberships. 

Customers in that category can transition their memberships through the deal’s website. If they have an existing Amazon Prime membership through a third party, they must first cancel it, and once their final billing cycle is complete, they can activate the free offer on the website. 

Spectrum is offering free Amazon Prime to eligible internet customers after steep customer losses. Jason Armond / Getty Images

Spectrum doubles down on slowing customer losses

The new offer comes during a time when Spectrum has recently been making major changes to improve customer retention in its broadband business.

In February, it launched its Invincible Wi-Fi product, which combines a battery unit and a backup 5G cellular connection designed to allow customers to maintain internet access when a power outage or network disruption occurs, a feature not offered by its rivals. 

Spectrum has also focused more on enhancing the customer experience by vowing earlier this year to install service and resolve technical issues within two hours for residents and one hour for businesses.

The company also doubled down on strengthening its value proposition by highlighting the savings customers can receive when they combine phone, cable TV and internet services. 

For instance, it recently started guaranteeing customers $1,000 in annual savings when they enroll in an internet plan with two Spectrum wireless lines.

During the company’s earnings call in July, Charter Communications CEO Chris Winfrey said that bundling “drives significant value and churn benefits” as internet customers who purchase a Spectrum mobile line churn (percentage of customers who cancel service) nearly 40% less, while those who add on a video product churn over 40% less.

Spectrum faces pressure to deliver more value to customers

It is vital for Spectrum to offer greater value to its internet customers, especially as more Americans switch broadband providers to avoid high prices. A recent survey from Reviews.org found that 73% of U.S. consumers saw their internet bills increase this year, up from 43% last year. 

Also, 67% have switched or considered switching internet providers because of hidden or unexpected fees, up from 56% the year before. 

Adlane Fellah, chief analyst at Maravedis Research, said in a RCR Wireless News report in June that network quality is no longer the top reason U.S. consumers are changing broadband providers. 

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“The drivers of switching have shifted from the network to everything around it: billing clarity, support, and value perception,” said Fellah.

In a July press release, Kristen Hanich, an industry analyst and senior director of research at Parks Associates, said that more broadband providers are sharpening their focus on lowering prices and providing greater benefits to retain customers amid this growing trend. 

“The competitive landscape has shifted from winning subscribers at any cost to keeping existing customers through better pricing, simplified service offerings, and integrated connectivity,” said Hanich. “Providers are investing in strategies that reduce churn while strengthening the value of broadband through mobile bundles and improved customer experiences.”

Amid this shift in consumer behavior, Spectrum is also betting big on its $34.5 billion acquisition of Cox Communications to help it win back customers. 

The acquisition was finalized on Aug. 20, and the move will allow Spectrum to invest billions of dollars in expanding and upgrading its network across the country. It will also enable it to offer broadband service at lower prices, reaching more rural areas nationwide. 

Related: Verizon acquires 35-year-old wireless carrier as it shuts down

The Philadelphia Phillies’ new outfielder didn’t hold back in a back-and-forth with an opposing player on X.

Jim Cramer picked Coca-Cola (KO) over Celsius Holdings (CELH) on live television.

During the August 20, 2026 Lightning Round on CNBC’s Mad Money, a caller asked him about Celsius. 

He answered without hesitation, saying he’d rather own Coca-Cola and calling it the clear winner.

The comment comes as Celsius stock is rallying. 

Shares are up about 16% over the past month, driven by an activist investor pushing to replace the company’s leadership.

For anyone holding Celsius or deciding whether to buy in, the gap between that rally and Cramer’s pick is worth understanding before the next move.

What Jim Cramer said about Celsius stock on Mad Money

Cramer did not soften the message. 

When the Celsius question came up, he told viewers, “We don’t want Celsius here, we have Coca-Cola. KO is the winner,” CNBC reported.

That line is important because of who said it.

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In November 2023 he called Celsius a Buy on the same show. 

In May 2024 he picked it over Monster Beverage, telling viewers to own the company taking market share.

His choice now points the other way, toward a slower, steadier, dividend-paying company.

Why the weak Celsius earnings report changed the picture

The turn follows a rough second-quarter report.

Celsius posted second-quarter revenue of $817.9 million on August 6. 

That was up 10.6% from a year earlier, but it fell short of the roughly $886 million analysts expected, according to Investing.com.

Adjusted earnings came in at $0.36 a share, below the $0.43 that Wall Street expected.

The bigger worry sat inside the flagship brand. Sales of the core Celsius line fell about 11.7% from a year earlier, Celsius reported.

Profit margins slipped too. Gross margin fell to 48.1% from 51.5% a year earlier, driven by heavier promotions and a shift in where sales came from.

Jim Cramer told Mad Money viewers he prefers Coca-Cola over Celsius, ending years of on-air support for the energy drink maker.Bloomberg / Getty Images

How Coca-Cola became the safer beverage pick for Cramer

Cramer’s preference for Coca-Cola follows a strong quarter from the larger company.

Coca-Cola posted adjusted earnings of 97 cents a share on July 28, ahead of the 93 cents expected, with revenue up 7% to $13.38 billion, CNBC reported.

Coca-Cola also pays a dividend and has raised it for more than six decades. 

That combination of steady sales and reliable income is the kind of profile investors tend to favor when they feel cautious about the wider market.

Cramer has said that current stock prices and business fundamentals have drifted apart in this market.  

Choosing Coca-Cola over Celsius fits that view. He is picking a large, profitable business over a smaller, faster-moving one that is still fixing its core brand.

What Cramer’s reversal signals for Celsius shareholders

Cramer’s Lightning Round often moves retail trading in the hours that follow. Losing his support removes one familiar source of on-air encouragement for Celsius stock.

Here is what current and potential CELH shareholders should consider:

Key points for Celsius investors include:

The growth premium is fading. Celsius is being judged more like a traditional beverage company now, and less like an unstoppable disruptor. Sales of the core brand need to recover before that view changes.

Integration work is not finished. Folding in Alani Nu and Rockstar is still adding short-term costs and promotional spending, which pressures margins.

The stock reacts hard to headlines. With Cramer stepping back and an activist fight underway, the stock can move sharply on one headline at a time.

Not all the news is negative. Alani Nu generated $364.4 million in second-quarter sales, up 21% from a year earlier, according to Celsius. 

The acquired brands are growing even as the flagship struggles.

Why the surge in Celsius stock is happening anyway

Russ Savage, the founder of Rockstar Energy, revealed a stake worth roughly $300 million and publicly called for new leadership, including the removal of the chief executive.

Investors responded quickly. The stock jumped about 12% on the day the news broke, and it has held much of that gain since.

That is why shares can climb while Cramer walks away. Traders are pricing in the possible change in management, not the current results.

Wall Street analysts are more cautious. 

Several firms cut their price targets after the earnings report, with JPMorgan moving to $56 from $70 and Stifel dropping to $45.

What Celsius investors can do next

If you own Celsius or are considering it, a few checkpoints can guide your decision.

Watch the core brand first. Management needs sales of the flagship Celsius line to stabilize before the growth argument returns. 

Until that happens, the stock stays tied to a turnaround that has not shown up in the numbers yet.

Track the activist fight. If large institutional shareholders back Savage, pressure on the board grows. If they back the current management, today’s plan stays in place.

Weigh your own risk tolerance. Coca-Cola offers slower growth with a dividend and a steadier history. Celsius offers a possible rebound with far more volatility. 

Cramer picked the calmer option, and each investor can decide whether that fits their own goals.

This is not a recommendation to buy or sell. Cramer changed his mind after the numbers changed. 

Check whether your own reasons for holding Celsius still hold up against the latest results.

Related: Pepsi and Coca-Cola bet big on soda Americans say they want

A stock can look very different six months after purchase, especially when its price has fallen way below the original entry point.

Most investors hold on, waiting for the price to recover rather than locking in a loss. A pattern one of the most successful investors alive says causes lasting financial damage. 

In his 2024 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Warren Buffett identified a behavioral pattern he called “the cardinal sin” of managing a business. 

His late partner, Charlie Munger, had a blunter label for the habit of sitting on known problems and hoping they disappear on their own: “thumb-sucking.”

Buffett admitted to misjudging businesses, managers, and capital allocation at Berkshire

Buffett’s candor in the 2024 Berkshire Hathaway annual letter went beyond a single line about thumb-sucking.

“The cardinal sin is delaying the correction of mistakes or what Charlie Munger called ‘thumb-sucking.’ Problems, he would tell me, cannot be wished away. They require action, however uncomfortable that may be,” Buffett wrote in the annual Letter.

His argument was direct: once you know something is broken, every quarter you wait to act compounds the cost.

Berkshire’s own Alphabet position illustrates what that delay looks like at scale.

At Berkshire’s 2017 annual meeting, Buffett and Munger acknowledged missing Google as their worst mistake in tech, with Buffett citing GEICO’s Google ad spending as direct insight into the business.

Two days later, on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Buffett called Google “an extraordinary business” with “some aspects of a natural monopoly.” Berkshire did not open a position for another eight years.

The firm opened its first Alphabet stake in the third quarter of 2025, buying 17.85 million shares valued at roughly $4.3 billion, and by the Q2 2026 13F filed August 14, 2026, that stake had grown to roughly 106 million shares, making Alphabet Berkshire’s third-largest holding, in a company Buffett had said Berkshire should have owned sooner.

The SEC identified a behavioral bias that explains why investors hold losing stocks

Behavioral researchers have given the pattern Buffett described a clinical name that appears in federal investor education materials.

The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy calls it the disposition effect, based on a Library of Congress report the agency commissioned in 2010. 

The report describes it as investors’ tendency to hold losing investments too long while selling winning investments too soon.

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Terrance Odean, now a professor of finance at the University of California, Berkeley, tested the effect using 10,000 brokerage accounts. 

His 1998 Journal of Finance study found that investors were roughly 1.5 times as likely to sell their winning positions as their losing ones.

That lopsided emotional math pushes investors to hold falling positions, because selling would force them to register the loss as permanent rather than temporary.

The SEC calls it the disposition effect: investors often sell winning stocks too soon while holding losing positions, hoping they recover eventually.Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images

One question can reveal whether patience or avoidance is driving your portfolio decisions

Shefrin and Statman’s 1985 Journal of Finance paper, titled “The Disposition to Sell Winners Too Early and Ride Losers Too Long: Theory and Evidence,” later described in the SEC bulletin, identified the desire to recover the original purchase price as its core driver. 

One reframing test, popularized by fund manager Peter Lynch in One Up on Wall Street and echoed in behavioral finance literature, captures the spirit of Buffett’s warning: ask whether you would buy the same stock today, at its current price, with cash sitting idle in a savings account.

A “no” separates a sound reassessment from an avoidance decision, but it does not, in itself, dictate a sale, tax treatment and time horizon shape what comes next, Certified Financial Planner Board guidance noted. 

What Buffett’s thumb-sucking test means for your next portfolio review

Buffett drew a clear line in his letter between patience built on a sound investment thesis and inaction driven by emotional avoidance. The second kind persists because admitting a mistake often feels worse to an investor than watching the position continue to lose value.

The winning stocks investors sold went on to outperform the losing stocks they kept by 3.4 percentage points over the following year, Odean’s study found. 

Every dollar locked in a holding with deteriorating fundamentals is a dollar unavailable for a position with stronger current prospects, and every quarter of delay is one where the compounding runs the other way.

Related: Warren Buffett named these 3 stocks as favorites for a reason

The Toronto Blue Jays’ future Hall of Famer offered a clear response after the New York Yankees ace irked his dugout.

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While many travel agencies continue to have their market serving niche groups of travelers even in the digital age, a large number that have initially been able to stay in business end up coming upon hard times.

The situation has been particularly acute in the United Kingdom where, since the start of 2026, the long list of companies that ceased operations since the start of 2026 includes Trav Expert, Groupia, Salamander Voyages, Travel Bespoke, Regen Central, Set Sail Cruises, Yourtravelshop.com, Ski Yodel and TS Travels Group among others.

Some of the most common reasons for an abrupt financial collapse include rising operating costs, a sudden dropoff in customers and dependence on airline partners that themselves were hit hard by the recent spike in jet fuel costs.

Frasers Travel shuts down operations, cancels all trips

Launched out of the Ayrshire county in southwestern Scotland in 1986, Saltcoats-based Frasers Travel spent the last four decades selling what it marketed as trips to “luxurious long-haul destinations to fantastic short-haul holiday packages” all over the world.

These included regular flight-hotel packages to destinations such as Spain, Portugal and Australia as well as cruise bookings on major global lines such as Royal Caribbean and Norwegian.

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“We regret to inform you that Frasers Travel Ltd has today ceased trading,” the company said in a media statement (the website to the company now goes to a dead link). “We would like to thank all our past clients for their loyalty and support.”

Frasers Travel sold Scottish locals Caribbean travel packages on major cruise lines.Royal Caribbean

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The sudden cancelation means that hundreds of customers who booked travel into the rest of 2026 are potentially affected. The travel agency said that any travelers with disrupted travel should email info@mclenancorporate.com, the insolvency company handling its case, for help.

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As a former member of the ABTA (a shortened form for the Association of British Travel Agents), Frasers Travel is protected through the business failure insurance that covers members.

“If you booked a flight inclusive holiday, your tour operator will be named on your ATOL Certificate under “Who is protecting your trip,” ABTA said in a statement on the situation with Frasers Travel. “To ensure your holiday continues as planned, you will need to contact the Credit Control Department of your Tour Operator with whom you have a contract. Your booking should continue as normal and they will now be your direct point of contact.”

These travel agencies also filed for bankruptcy in 2026:

AVG Travels: The Melbourne-based travel agency selling cheap vacation packages to travelers in Australia and New Zealand sent more than 200 travelers an email saying that the trips were canceled before entering bankruptcy in May 2026.

GoPlay Sports: In April 2026, the men’s basketball team of the University of Dallas was left without a planned trip to compete in the United Kingdom after Boston-based GoPlay Sports Tours LLC accepted two payments of $30,000 and then went unreachable.

Havantur: Havantur was forced to shut down its main European office in France at the start of 2026 after tourist numbers to the Caribbean country plummeted due to U.S. military actions in Venezuela and threats against the country.

Vegas Vacations and North America Destinations: Two travel agencies in the Canadian province of British Columbia, Vegas Vacations and North America Destinations, were shut down by regulators within a few days of each other in January 2026 after multiple travelers complained of buying trips that had invalid plane tickets and hotel bookings.

Related: Another travel company shuts down and cancels all trips, refunds available

A Harvard working paper tracking 62 million workers across 285,000 U.S. firms found that companies adopting generative AI reduced junior employment by about 9% within six quarters.

This is based on the updated May 2026 version of the paper, while senior employment held steady. Seyed Mahdi Hosseini Maasoum and Guy Lichtinger, the paper’s authors, describe the pattern as “seniority-biased technological change.”

Morgan Housel, bestselling author of The Psychology of Money, raised this concern on The Tetr Podcast, telling host Pratham Mittal he would “move mountains” to send his children to a good college. 

But Housel also flagged a problem that no tuition check can solve: AI is eliminating the junior positions where graduates have always learned how to work.

For parents investing in college savings plans, that gap between the diploma and the career it used to unlock is widening.

Housel still backs college but says the diploma alone is not enough

On the podcast, Housel told Mittal that almost everything taught at a university can now be learned through platforms like YouTube or ChatGPT. 

“Even so, Housel told Mittal he would still ‘move mountains’ to send his children to a good college.”

He also pushed back on the entrepreneurship narrative, noting that starting a business often delivers less freedom than students expect. 

Social media compounds the pressure, Housel observed, by turning the entire world into a comparison group and making it harder for young people to define success on their own terms.

Entry-level roles in debugging, testing, routine coding, data entry, and basic financial analysis have always been where graduates developed judgment, accountability, and an understanding of how decisions play out inside organizations. 

Artificial Intelligence handles this work faster and cheaper, resulting in a freeze on junior hiring rather than mass layoffs of experienced workers.

AI keeps senior workers but freezes out junior hires globally

Entry-level hiring at the 15 largest tech companies dropped more than 50% from pre-pandemic levels through 2024, with fresh graduates going from about 15% of all new hires to roughly 7%, according to SignalFire’s 2025 State of Tech Talent Report.

SignalFire’s June 2026 update revised the decline to roughly 65% across 12 Tech Majors since 2019. Early-stage startups fared worse, with entry-level hiring falling around 75% over the same period.

Natasha Pillay-Bemath, IBM’s VP of Global Talent Acquisition and Executive Search, said junior positions now demand analytical and AI skills.

Entry-level roles are shifting from purely task-driven work to analysis, problem-solving and responsible AI use,

Indian IT services firms cut entry-level roles by 20% to 25% due to automation. Job platforms including LinkedIn, Indeed, and Eures tracked a 35% decline in junior tech positions across major EU countries during 2024, Rest of World noted.

At the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said, “We expect over the next years, in advanced economies, 60% of jobs to be affected by AI, either enhanced or eliminated or transformed, 40% globally. This is like a tsunami hitting the labor market.”

She added that “tasks that are eliminated are usually what entry-level jobs present, so young people searching for jobs find it harder to get to a good placement.”

AI is reshaping tech hiring, with senior workers staying while entry-level roles shrink sharply across companies and countries.Mariia Vitkovska / Getty Images

Organizations lose the training layer that built professional judgment

Forbes columnist Samantha Walravens reached a similar conclusion in a January 2026 piece: when companies eliminate junior roles, they save on payroll but lose the training layer that produces their next generation of leaders.

Jossie Haines, an executive coach and former engineering leader at Apple, told Forbes that AI cannot automate human judgment. 

“AI could potentially figure out how to process copyright tickets,” Haines explained in the Forbes feature. “But it cannot figure out why the product team keeps building features that raise copyright concerns, or how to address that from a process perspective.”

That kind of systems-level thinking develops through proximity to real decisions, through catching errors before they spread and absorbing how accountability works inside an organization.

When companies cut the roles where this learning happened, they save on payroll but erode their own leadership pipeline.

Hiring spikes, but the bar for new graduates keeps rising 

The National Association of Colleges and Employers initially projected only a 1.6% increase in hiring for the Class of 2026 in its November 2025 Job Outlook, Forbes reported.

NACE’s April 2026 Spring Update revised that figure upward to 5.6%, with more than a third of employers reporting plans to add hires. But more openings haven’t made landing the job easier.

“Employers are increasingly unwilling to gamble on unproven candidates. Instead, they favor applicants who can point to concrete work they’ve already done and explain how it translates to the role,” Bari Williams, a startup advisor and former senior legal counsel at Facebook, said.

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In her view, career services can no longer be a senior-year stop for resume polish.

Schools need to build durable pathways that give students real responsibility earlier, including client-based projects, embedded internships, and evaluation that rewards judgment rather than completion.

IBM is a counterexample: the company plans to triple its US entry-level hiring in 2026 and has “rewritten every job” to shift junior roles toward analysis, problem-solving, and AI oversight, Chief Human Resources Officer Nickle LaMoreaux told the Charter AI Summit, IBM Think reported.

Parents face a harder question about what comes after graduation

A degree still opens doors, but it no longer guarantees the on-the-job training that used to sit behind those doors. 

The old career bargain, where college taught students how to think and entry-level jobs taught them how to work, assumed that junior roles would continue to exist at scale.

The families writing checks this fall face a harder question than the one their own parents answered. The old question was whether the school was worth the money. The new one is whether the program produces a graduate who can do something a company can’t already get, faster and cheaper, from a model.

Related: From Corporate Careers to Remote Freedom: Insights from Digital Nomads

FC Barcelona will travel to Elche on Sunday, to start the defense of back-to-back La Liga tiles while aiming for three in a row for the first time since 2011.